


The Witch And The Boy

by DepressionRae



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Ciel learning magic and manners, Eventual Fluff, M/M, Witch AU, but he goes soft for ciel, eventual Grell/William, father/son relationship for Bard and Finny, father/son relationship for Sebastian and Ciel, immortal witch things, might be eventual Sebastian/Agni/Bard, sebastian is a village witch and hates every minute of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26927779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DepressionRae/pseuds/DepressionRae
Summary: A witch auSebastian never planned to be the village witch, and yet it happened overnight. He did not plan to become concerned or worried with the village folk. But then a woman comes to his door, begging for a child. Ten years later, and she is murdered along with her husband, and Sebastian fights to bring the boy home - he did not plan on becoming a father, and then he found Ciel.
Relationships: Agni/Sebastian Michaelis, Baldroy/Sebastian Michaelis, William T. Spears/Grell Sutcliff
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A witch Au (not a Harry Potter Au, actual witchcraft here)
> 
> It's been a long while since I've written something, but I just got laid off from work and want to write something fun before I attempt to work on Dragon's Child and Scars, Cacti & Chai Tea. Anyway, as per usual, Sebastian in this is the slightly unwilling guardian of one Ciel Phantomhive - but this time Sebastian is a reclusive witch living on the edge of bumfuck nowhere and keeps getting harassed by the nearby villagers (and then someone has a cursed baby, and of course said baby is getting dumped on the only witch in town)
> 
> This is just a super small chapter ty for popping in. Will get a longer chapter out soon.
> 
> Leave a review or whatever, thank you for reading!

In retrospect, he really should have seen it coming. Of course moving into the country wouldn't have gotten him the peace and quiet he so wanted, but instead weary villagers from across the river knocking on his door at all times of day and night. He wouldn't get any peace. Far from it, actually. Instead, as the only witch - that anyone knew of anyway - on this side of the forest, he was subject to the whims and desires of the village folk.

Sebastian Michealis was a witch; and he paid dearly for it.

Most asked for blessings, good harvests and healthy children. Some wanted wealth, and some wanted luck, and some wanted love. Or was it lust? He didn't pay too much attention to their exact wordings. He just gave them the spells and potions they asked for, only ever asking for them to leave him be - and if they slipped him a few shiny coins, that was just fine too. Sometimes the local children would come knocking, asking for things only children would think to ask for. Warm summers, solid ice at the nearby pond to go skating on, new dolls or games to play among the buildings of their home. Some came hungry or nervous, asking with shaking voices for full stomachs or to be fearless or for their families to love them.

One such child had been just a little girl, with hair the color of dying embers. She had, with teary eyes, asked for a spell that would make her hair the same shade of haybale yellow as her sister's. She had nothing to pay with, but so hated her own appearance that she begged and begged, even making the dangerous promise of a first born.

Sebastian had told her he didn't make spells or potions for such silly things. He had, instead, pointed her to the bright red roses growing wild and sprawling at the edge of his garden, and asked her if they, like her hair, was ugly to her. When her answer came as a firm, confident no, he plucked one of the wild roses from the bush, unbothered by the prickly thorns that dug at the pale skin of his palms.

"This rose is no different from the very thing you hate. Go home, child, and look at yourself again and reconsider your hatred. Nobody hates a crimson rose." Sebastian handed the girl the rose, now free of it's sharp thorns, and swept inside, never to look back or wonder about the redhead.

Many years later, he heard of a 'Madam Red' who loved the color red so much it was in everything she owned. The witch barely spared a thought for the little girl that had once taken a crimson rose from his hand - and with it, the spell for confidence.

* * *

Sebastian paid little attention to the village folk, and perhaps that is why it shook him to find the slim, shaking woman on his doorstep. She was pale, with blonde hair and dressed in fine clothes. He used to turn these ones away; however, something in her small voice begging him for help had him stepping to the side, and letting her inside.

If she was bothered by the company he kept, she said nothing, only telling him her name - Rachel. She had come to him for a boon of fertility. Rachel had married rich, but to a well know, viscous man by the name of Vincent Phantomhive. Even the witch knew the woman's marriage was a mistake, and likely a cruel one. But she asked not for freedom or relief, as most battered wives and husbands asked him for, but for a child.

"Surely a child would appease him." She'd whispered, only her hands shaking now. He should've told her that it wouldn't, that man like that are only made happy in the misery of another, that the child would only suffer.

But he didn't. Instead he simply put the kettle on the stove and packed a small paper packet with different powders and herbs, muttering an incantation before he sealed the packet with a few drops of bright red ink and a crow stamp.

"Drop a teaspoon into your bathwater every night until it's gone and you'll be with child within the month." Sebastian then went to the jars of herbs and tea leaves on the far shelf, and prepared a small box of mixed herbs and teas. This he handed to Rachel with the packet. "The tea is for the pain."

"Thank you, witch." She clutched the items to her chest, not bothering to deny that she needed the tea.

He did not watch her leave.

_He swore he didn't watch that poor girl leave._

* * *

Almost a decade later, and the Phantomhive manor was burned to the ground. Rachel and Vincent Phantomhive were both dead, and their son was rumored to be dead or missing. Sebastian couldn't make himself believe that he didn't care. Not this time. Not when he could've convinced that poor woman to leave her husband, not when he helped her bring that boy into the world. So he listened, he stalked the village and sent watching eye crows up towards the manor and church. He would find that boy. Dead or alive, he owed it to Rachel, to her mourning sister that he now knew was the little girl he'd once helped love herself.

He would find Ciel Phantomhive, and he would bring him home.


	2. The Manor and The dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian continues his journey of finding the child of Rachel and Vincent. Does he find Ciel? Does he commune with demons (lmao) to try and find him? Does the blacksmith want to bang him? What the fuck is Grell doing? Who's dog is that? Are these people even mentioned in this chapter?? Read to find out!
> 
> Sebastian searches the rubble of the manor, looking for clues of Ciel's location and something to help him with his finding magic. Something among the rubble gives him a spooky head start.
> 
> Thank you for the support and comments! Please let me know what you think of this chapter.

Standing in the rubble of what used to be a grand, sprawling manor, Sebastian felt cold despite the still smoldering debris all around him. Not much had survived the fire. Most of what was left was scorched, cracked stone and burnt, twisted remains of the thickest pieces of wood. And even those were brittle and breaking apart when touched. Underneath the dark ash, hidden from sight yet obviously there, would be the corpses of those that had lived and died here. Trapped there until someone came for them. From what he'd gathered from the villagers, many of them had still been alive when the fire had been lit. Perhaps that's why he felt cold; such violence surely left something less than human behind.

The witch shook his head to clear out those thoughts, pulling his cloak tighter around his thin shoulders. He was here for a reason, after all. He needed to find the boy that had lived here, that was supposed to have survived. A butler that had made it out before the fire started had claimed to see the boy being carried off into the woods, but was so old nobody had taken his words seriously.

Well, except for himself. Which was why he was standing here, feeling like a sick scavenger picking through the rubble.

"This is a wretched place." Sebastian mumbled, cautiously stepping over the remains of a piano, the wicked metal skeleton of it's gears the only thing that remained of the instrument. Something crunched under his boot, and the witch dared not look down. A part of him worried about upsetting lingering spirits should he step on their bones; he didn't want to look down and confirm his own fears and see that the ground was indeed littered with burnt bones. All he needed was something of the boy's, a toy or picture, and then he'd be on his way. Then he could find the young Phantomhive child.

Sebastian paused, jolted from his thoughts by a sudden puff of smoke and ash, close enough that he had to cover his mouth lest he breath it in. It had come from just behind the last clinging remnants of a stone wall. Peeking around it, the witch gasped as he came face to face with a large black dog.

Abruptly stepping away, he regarded the canine with wary eyes, and the dog in turn only stared right back. Just as he thought to walk away, he realized something - he could see through the dog, and below it's paws, he could see the scorched skull of the canine, the rest of the mangled corpse half buried in ashes. One of the lingering spirits he had been worried about upsetting. At least it was only a dog.

"Ah, I see..." Sebastian crouched, holding out a hand to the ghostly animal. Now that he actually looked, the poor thing appeared to be sad, keen eyes intelligent and pained. What a horrible death it had suffered, abandoned and burned alive. No wonder it had not moved on. As it stepped towards him, he couldn't but whisper to it, "I am so sorry, this loss of life is unforgivable. Someone must be missing you right now."

The dog only tilted it's head at his words, but it's long tail swished slowly in an uncertain wag.

"I'll bury your bones, I promise, but first I have to find something. It's to help someone. I wonder if you had ever met him, beast?" The tail wagged faster this time, and he smiled.

And then the dog took off, phasing through the piles of rubble, only to come back to him and bark, then repeat. It only took a moment before Sebastian thought to follow the ghost, having to pick up speed and vault over rubble and broken walls. Eventually, the dog stopped, sat back on it's haunches and _howled_. As he drew closer to where the ghost sat, it made to dig at the dark ash underneath it, but found it could not and whined, whipping it's head around to look at the witch.

Wincing, Sebastian carefully knelt down and pushed the ash out of his way, hoping to find something. All he found was the smooth, surprisingly unmarred surface of some type of wooden chest. Brushing more ash off of it, and seeing that it was indeed a chest, though somewhat burned and splintered here and there. It was small, too. A child's chest, then? Perhaps it belonged to the missing Ciel Phantomhive? It was small enough that he didn't have to dig much to be able to pull it out of the rubble.

There was no lock on it, and he quickly lifted the lid, albeit gingerly as to not break it. Inside the items lay unmarked and intact; mostly books and board games, no doubt made by his father, and there looked to be a few photos and trinkets as well. Laying on top of it all, almost perfectly intact except for a missing button eye, was a white rabbit in a little black suit and bowtie, with a top hat barely holding on. Someone had written _Ciel_ graceful, curling letters underneath the brim of the rabbit's hat. This was what he had been looking for!

"Thank you, be- oh." The dog was gone, nothing but mist and a cold spot. Still, it had helped him on his mission and he had made it a promise. Once he moved the chest somewhere safe, he would come back and bury it's body. He knew just the place, too. A dog like that would surely love such a grove.

* * *

With the chest now inside his home, Sebastian carefully unfolded a large map, drawn years ago by his own hand. He spread the yellowed parchment over the floor, right on top of his own summoning circle. The corners - which curled towards the center no matter how he smoothed them - were pinned with red wax candles. He lit these - and the others surrounding him, tall and pale - alight with a nearly purple flame. From a small, dark wooden box, he carefully lifted a seeking crystal hanging from a long iron chain.

The rabbit from the chest was set just off the map, in the center of the circle. The crystal was dipped in a bowl of sea water, mixed with the ashes from the manor, and held over the map, swinging in a small circle. Then came the incantation, a simple enough finding spell.

It didn't take long.

After a few repeats of the words, the crystal nearly yanked itself out of his hand, stopping dead center on the map. Right on top of an old church that had lain abandoned and rotting for nearly a decade. Well, it should've been abandoned. Clearly, someone had taken up residence there, and Ciel was there now too...

Sebastian sat back, letting the crystal fall from his hand. It rolled over the floor, coming to a stop at the overstuffed white feet of the child's rabbit. All that was left was to go get him. There was no telling what could be in that church, he knew that, but he had no choice. No one else knew about this. He'd have to go alone, unless he could convince someone to go along with him - the blacksmith, perhaps? The one with the troubled face who spoke softly of battlefields and had the inhumanly strong son? He always seemed to favor Sebastian over the village folk. And there was that redheaded hunter, too...and Madame Red, although she herself was still recovering from injuries from her own accident.

A piercing howl came from outside, startling him from his planning. Glancing out the window, he could see a ghostly canine running through the trees, howling for the simple delight of it.

At least he'd been right about the grove.


End file.
